Morgan's Wonderland

On Saturday, I took Jamie to Morgan's Wonderland.  It's a beautiful place with a beautiful message.  Rather than rambling on and on about how much fun we had, and how glorious it was to spend the day playing in such a wonderful, inclusive environment, I'll let the pictures speak for me.

I Feel Like a Jerk

I've been so busy with school, work, Jamie and stuff related to Dad's passing that I've been pretty incommunicado with my family, other than by electronic means. However, most of my mom's side of the family is made up of technophobes (one aunt and uncle don't even own cell phones, much less a computer!), so I don't speak to them as often.

Today, on my lunch break, I called my Uncle A. and Aunt J. The first thing Uncle A. said was "How's your dad doing?" Ummm.... "Actually, Daddy passed away in January, the day before Jamie's birthday." If it had been nighttime, I'd have been able to hear crickets chirping. For all these months, my mom's family didn't know that my dad had died. Yikes! They weren't close by any means, but they're solid people. The kind who - even if they couldn't stand the ex-husband/father who wasn't related to them by blood, they'd still want to pay their respects for the people who they are related to's sake. And I didn't even let them know.

I hate, hate HATE that I'm such a bad neice/relative. I just get so wrapped up in the five million things I have going on, and I was raised pretty much separately from my extended family, so my first inclination has never been to call/write them to tell them what's going on in my life - especially when it's so crazy busy that I don't even have time to breathe, much less have a conversation. Plus, although we're related by blood, I don't really know them, and they don't really know me. True, part of that is my fault. I allowed my standoffishness to get in the way of me knowing them now that I'm an adult, and letting them know me.

I feel like a real jerk, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I'll just make the resolution (once again) to be a better relative and keep in touch, so they don't worry about me. They don't have Internet, so they can't read my blog or get an e-mail from me that lets them know how we're doing. I need to pick up the actual phone more often and let them know what's going on, and find out from them how they're doing.